In a hectic and stressful world where things always seem black and white, we have to work so hard to find a balance and become more “grey”.
It seems that we are surrounded by right vs wrong, love vs hate, success vs failure and abled vs disabled arguments all of the time.
Obviously, we can either take sides or find our own balance in the equilibrium.
So we become one of the millions (yes millions, not 50!) shades of grey – trying to live the best life that we can without rocking the boat too much.

But let me tell you something (and this is tough from somebody who loves the colour grey) – grey is boring. Yes, there are millions of shades of it but it is basically a mix of two non-colours anyway.
A lot of your stress comes from trying to keep the balance, from trying to please people and keep everyone around you happy, trying to make sure that all of your dependants have what they need, trying to meet your manager’s deadlines and targets, trying to live up to your parent’s expectations.
Basically, trying to be superb at everything yet never really being content or satisfied with your life.
Grey is stressful, black and white is more stressful.
So what happens if you are more of a purple shade of grey? (And I like purple even more than grey) Or a sparkly pink? Or a vivid red?
What happens if you start doing things differently?
The great entrepreneurs of this world are doing exactly that.
What makes them so successful? The fact that they fit in? Not at all – it is the fact that they do things differently!
The happiest people are those that live their life with no need to fit into the idea of “normal”.

One of the greatest entrepreneurs Steve Jobs said this:
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

I was really unsure on whether I should join the many voices who are having their share of opinions on Paris (and Lebanon, Turkey, Nigeria and Kenya and everywhere where people are oppressed or victims of terror and crime).
I think that enough is being said by everyone else and probably more passionately and eloquently than I can.
Although we live in frightening times, I still honestly believe that there are far more good, kind and caring people than there are bad, evil and hateful ones.
We cannot fight hate with more hate, lack of understanding or general ignorance.

One of the things that I absolutely love about this blog is the diversity of my readers – I have readers and followers from all over the world, from all religions and races and of all ages.
And I love that!
Everybody has stress – no matter where you come from, or what your life circumstances are, you are going to be exposed to stress.
Because after all, we are all human.
And it would do us good to remember that. Nobody has the right to think that they have more rights than anybody else.

Understand this – whether it is a nation hating another nation, a terrorist organisation breeding a generation of killers, a neighbour fighting their neighbour, your manager constantly giving you a hard time or your family not respecting you….
It is not your story!
You can only be the best person that you can be. If somebody else doesn’t like you for being you, it has nothing to do with you – it is not your story!

Continue to be the wonderful, kind and caring person that you are.
Continue to be your unique self.
Continue to spread love and acts of kindness to all people around you no matter who they are.
That is good enough.

Sometimes you just need a quick fix when you are stressed or anxious (and no, I’m not talking about drugs and alcohol).
Acupressure is a wonderful alternative treatment that can help you with hundreds of ailments using hundreds of points on your body.
I find acupressure beneficial, especially when combined with aromatherapy.
It is not necessarily going to cure the problem but it goes a long way to help you to feel more comfortable.
There is also a huge fear when you are stressed or anxious that you are going to become overwhelmed or lose control. By knowing some simple techniques to help yourself, you are taking some of the control back.

These are my favourite (and most convenient and easy to find) points:

1. Headaches: Press hard on your finger tips for 30 seconds at a time OR press down on the middle of the 4th bone of your index finger (yes, you have 4 bones in your finger – count them) putting pressure on the inside of your finger.

2. Anxiety: Pulse push (in other words push, release and push again) on the spot between your eyebrows (that is presuming that you have 2 eyebrows – if you have one, figure out where the middle is – basically above your nose) This point is also helpful for treating insomnia so if you can’t fall asleep, breathe deeply and press between your eyebrows!
Another brilliant pressure point for anxiety that helps you to breathe more deeply is just above the point where the bones of your index finger and thumb meet.
Press this point while breathing in, hold your breath and then release while breathing out.
(You can comfortably do this when you are sitting at your desk or facing your manager across the boardroom table)

Like this:

I started Monday with a quote for motivation about how we should go and slay dragons.
In other words, we should start the week ready to face our fears and deal with our stressors.

It definitely put a spring in my step (well, as much spring as there can be on a Monday morning) and I was really motivated to have a much more positive week than I had last week.
Of course being me, I also felt the need to document my feelings through art and I decided that I should draw a picture of a dragon so that I could have a reminder of what I needed to do.
I spent some time looking at pictures of dragons and I was confident that I had an idea of how mean (but not too mean), and scary (but not too scary) I wanted my dragon to look.
So far, so good…. Until I took out my sketch pad and happened to grab a purple pencil (of course it would be purple!) and before I know it, my dragon is most un-scary and un-mean dragon that ever existed.
So, my dragon is obviously not meant to be ferocious – in fact it was quite the opposite.

Which made me think (as I do) that I start off Monday generally feeling a bit anxious about what is going to happen in the week, I always long for the weekend to be just one day longer and I definitely have my share of feeling sorry for myself.
But my dragon is not even scary.
How blessed am I to have the stress that I do? Compared to other people, my stress (my dragon) is hardly a thing at all.
Even my son laughed at my dragon and told me that his dragon was far more vicious than mine.
I laughed back because how much stress can he have compared to me?
He quickly reminded me that although his stress did not seem like much to me, to him it was big enough to worry him.

Everybody has stress but not everybody experiences stress the same way.
We are so blessed to have the things that we do have and the opportunities that are presented to us.
Would you rather have work stress or be worried about how you are going to survive living in a war torn country?
Would you rather have issues in your relationship or be stressing about where you are going to sleep for the night, or where you are going to get food?

Yes, our dragons may not be huge, and we should be grateful for that, but they are still our dragons.
It is not a competition about whose dragons are bigger or scarier.
We still need to gather all the weapons that we need to slay whatever dragon we have in our lives.